IOM counts 112,000 people displaced inside Yemen in two weeks, and 3,000 who crossed to Djibouti

The International Organization for Migration said on 18 September that at least 112,000 people were forced from their homes inside Yemen in the previous two weeks. Nearly 3,000 more crossed the Gulf of Aden to Djibouti in overcrowded boats. UNHCR representative Sandrine Desamours, speaking from Djibouti, said the government there is preparing for as many as 10,000 arrivals and that the new load will hit health and school services hard.

The trigger is a Houthi advance along the Red Sea coast that took the port of Mocha and the southern shoreline toward the Bab el-Mandeb Strait. Forces aligned with the internationally recognised government fell back. Saudi and Yemeni aircraft have answered with strikes on Houthi-held districts. Houthi television reported raids in Hajjah, near the Saudi border. Saudi civil defence said debris from an intercepted drone killed a Yemeni resident in Taif, the first death Riyadh has announced from the past week of attacks.

The 2022 truce that had frozen most of the old front lines is finished. The new fighting is a spillover from the wider war between Iran and the United States. The Houthis, aligned with Tehran, have used the opening to push for the strait and to fire at Saudi cities and energy sites. Riyadh is trying to hold the border and keep oil moving.

What the camps already show

Reuters reporters found families at the al-Bireen camp who had been displaced once before and were now on the move again. A woman baking bread in a clay oven said they were living under rockets and missiles. People told aid workers they had left livestock, clothes and blankets behind. Wahida Omer, 50, reached Djibouti from Dhubab after her village came under attack. She told IOM the crossing was frightening, that people cried through it, and that they landed without food.

Those details are the part of the story that a strait-and-oil frame usually drops. Mocha is a port. Bab el-Mandeb is a shipping lane. The 112,000 are the cost of treating the coast as a prize in someone else’s war. Yemen already held about 5.2 million internally displaced people before this fortnight. The new wave sits on top of that number, not in place of it.

The military claims around the exodus

Houthi leader Abdul Malik al-Houthi said the group wants Saudi Arabia to end what he calls a blockade and an intervention. The movement also claimed to have shot down a Saudi F-15 over Marib and released footage of wreckage. That claim has not been independently confirmed. A Yemeni official said 23 government soldiers were killed in two southwestern provinces. Houthis said 40 of their fighters died in Saudi air strikes and ground fighting. Those tallies will move. The IOM count of 112,000 is the figure that can be checked against camp registers and boat logs.

Djibouti is a small state with a large port and a limited public service base. Ten thousand extra people would be a shock even if the boats stopped tomorrow. They will not stop if Mocha stays in Houthi hands and the air war continues. The strait will keep drawing military attention because tankers use it. The people leaving Dhubab and Mocha are using it as an escape route. Both uses are now on the same water.